All 'trafficked' Haiti quake orphans have parents

Accused of trafficking: Four Americans arrested while trying to bus children out of Haiti without proper documents leave a police station in Port-au-Prince.

Carlos Barria: Reuters

Haiti earthquake aid workers say all 33 children United States missionaries tried to illegally take from the country have parents.

SOS Children's Village said all of the children have finally been reunited with their families.

"It has turned out that all of the 33 children have parents. SOS Children's Villages is convinced that in most cases, the best place for a child to be cared for and protected is within the family," they said.

Laura Silsby and nine fellow Baptists from Idaho in the US were arrested on January 29 as they tried to take 33 Haitian children into the neighbouring Dominican Republic by bus without the necessary documentation.

The group denied wrongdoing, saying it was only trying to help orphans in the wake of Haiti's devastating January 12 earthquake that killed more than 220,000 people.

Some parents told the judge they willingly handed over the children because they could no longer care for them following the devastating quake that destroyed much of the Haitian capital.

Nine of the accused have since been released and returned to the United States, but Silsby, the leader of the New Life Children's Refuge group, remains in a Port-au-Prince jail facing charges of child trafficking.